Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Hades.” I lean forward this time. I’m the one to push into his space. I lean my hips farther into the gap between his thighs, feeling the muscles tense around my legs, and put my mouth to his. I lick his bottom lip and explore into his mouth with my tongue. I hold his face in my hands and keep him where I want him so I can feel him there, and so he can feel me as I am—naked before him, in his rooms, away from any prying eyes. Here, I am only his lover. I belong to him fully. I need him to know that I belong to him fully in every realm, even if I have other responsibilities. Know, I think, and kiss him harder. Know I belong to you. Remember how this feels. Remember that I’m coming back. Never doubt that I am coming back to you. I will not give you up. “Hades, you will let me go,” I whisper the spell like a siren. Just as I’ve seen Aphrodite do a thousand times before…
Hades
I cannot be still without her even though I feel numb. There’s a cage around the beast inside of me. I’m not certain how it’s come to this. The events of her departure are hazy. All I remember are her moans as she straddled me and gave me a pleasure that drugged me.
Sleep is difficult at the best of times. I could not fall asleep easily when I was alone in the dark for all those years. When I was a captive. One would think sleep would be an easy way to pass the time, but it was hard to come by and disoriented me more than it comforted me.
It’s difficult to explain. Most beings, souls or otherwise, cannot understand what it’s like to live without life for so many years. Without purpose or meaning or sensation. With only my thoughts of being trapped and alone forever more. One loses a sense of time. Time to sleep and time to wake blur into nothingness. One loses a sense of whether one is awake or asleep when there is no sunrise or sunset to track the time.
I watched her go.
It was like watching the best parts of me disappear out of the Underworld, leaving only that crack in the sky behind. Then that was gone, too. Without her, it feels like nothingness once again. Although there is so much. So much that requires my presence and authority.
I consulted with the guards. I walked with Minox in the halls. I sat at a table and ate, though I cannot remember what.
And then I came to my empty bedchambers.
Staring up at the ceiling, surrounded by her scent that lingers in the silk sheets, it seems as if I merely exist. The firelight is dim above me. I would like to pass some of the hours with sleep, but when she leaves, it is as if I am back in that prison again.
What will be here when I open my eyes?
Not my love, Persephone.
Closing my eyes, I attempt to let my mind quiet.
It fills itself with images of her. Persephone, sleeping on the pillow, her sweet curves tempting me. Persephone, placing the tip of her finger to a rosebush and making the roses black as night. Persephone, both her hands on mine at court. The memories of her are all-consuming, like a drug that makes me crave her all the more.
All I can think is that she is not here. All I can feel is the emptiness of the bed. Tomorrow, when I walk the path, she will not be there, and I will be left with her empty throne next to mine. She will not hold my hand at court. She will not pass judgments.
“At least,” I murmur out loud. “There is proof she was here. The Underworld is cleansed of ash.”
Cerberus rises lazily from his spot on the rug by the fire and pads to me, then hops up onto the bed. It creaks as he comes to me. He nudges sleepily at me with three of his noses, circles on the blankets, and goes back to sleep.
He’s certain she will return.
Or he is certain that I will be fine either way.
I’m envious of his certainty.
With time drifting by too slowly, I go out into the hall, motioning to the guards to tell them I do not need an escort. My feet take me to my andron.
I wave at the hearth, and a low fire burns up from the logs. This late in the night, I do not need much light. I do not even need the mirror. I do not need—
I do need her. Curse all the realms, I need her. I’ve not negotiated with Zeus about scrying, and most of my life has proved to me that no one is waiting for me to need their presence.